Worcester teacher Jon Short holds a Guitars in the Classroom session
for Sujata Bhatia of Harvard University and Jill Potsaid, right, a special
education teacher at Boston’s Elihu Greenwood Leadership Academy.

Photo by Jean Conley

MASSCreative says the arts aren’t just nice — they’re necessary

By Jean Conley

F or Jess Baron, using music to embed learning into students’ minds is more than just a matter
of instinct.

Baron is the founder and executive
director of Guitars in the Classroom,
a California-based nonprofit that
adds just the right note to learning,
no matter what the subject. The
program helps integrate lessons into
the portions of the brain where rhythm,
memory and repetition reside.

Baron started Guitars in the
Classroom almost 14 years ago. She
was convinced that music — a basic,
instinctual form of human expression
that aids memorization and draws
people in — would help students learn
in diverse ways.

As she was teaching music classesin a public elementary school in SantaCruz, she recalled, subject teachers“started noticing that students wouldcome back to class and sing incessantlyafter the music class had ended.”“Several teachers came back to meand said, ‘I wish I could do that,’” shesaid, meaning they wanted to engagestudents in math and history lessons asdeeply as they were engaged in musiclearning. “You can,” Baron replied.

Today, guitar-toting teachers in 31
states are using GITC to help teach the
basics of math, history and geography,
keeping their students engaged and
helping them retain what they have
learned. In Massachusetts, the program
is continuing to win raves as more
teachers learn the basics from GITC
teacher-trainers.

Guitars in the Classroom formsgroups of up to 24 educators and,No previous musical training or innateability is assumed. GITC has reached,conservatively, about 800,000 students,Baron estimated.

Baron, who is trained as a music
specialist, has a background in
educating students with behavioral
disabilities. Before launching GITC,
she provided music instruction to public
school students, wrote books and taught
human development classes.

One of GITC’s East Coastambassadors is Judy Roberts, aclassically trained musician who livesin Quincy. Roberts is on the board ofthe worldwide United Nations artsinitiative known as Music as a GlobalResource. Her ear for music and cost-effective ideas, plus a meeting of theminds when Roberts and Baron bothworked on an event for the initiative,launched their friendship. Robertslearned about Baron’s fast-spreadingorganization; Baron learned aboutRoberts’ work producing special eventsto help charities such as hospitals inBoston.

Roberts pointed to the “incrediblesuccess rate of GITC” and its lowcost due to a nationwide networkof dedicated teacher-trainers anddonations of guitars and supplies frominstrument manufacturers. As a resultof its track record, GITC is now one ofthe 105 programs included in a UnitedNations initiative called Creative Artsas a Global Resource. Roberts saidGITC’s effectiveness has put it in the“exemplar” category and has won theprogram worldwide acclaim.Worcester music teacher Jon Shortmet Baron at a summer festival inNashville. During the event, he attendeda GITC presentation she gave andwatched her personality fill the room.Short had already been usingguitar in his sixth-grade classroom atCanterbury Street Community School,where his students learned catchysongs to help embed math conceptsand get ready for standardized tests.Baron asked Short to begin the firstGITC chapter in the state, and inFebruary 2011 he arrived home to find15 Martin guitars on his porch.

Short has led half a dozen GITC
programs and continues to use GITC
methods with his students at Chandler
Elementary Community School and
the Francis J. McGrath Elementary
School, both of which he serves as a
general music teacher. He also uses
them at City View Discovery School,
where he is an extended-learning
enrichment instructor.

Sujata Bhatia, a medical doctor,chemical engineer and assistantdirector of undergraduate studies at theHarvard School of Engineering andApplied Sciences, is another die-hardfan of Guitars in the Classroom. Whenshe’s not advising undergraduatebiomedical engineers or working onmedical device innovations for theG overnor Deval Patrick’s proposed fiscal 2014 budget allocates almost $10 millionfor the Massachusetts CulturalCouncil to invest in the state’s creativecommunity — but that amount, whichis far from guaranteed in the state’sfinal spending plan, is less than halfof what Massachusetts invested in artsand culture 10 years ago.

This does not sit well with
Matthew Wilson, a veteran of outside-the-box activism.

Wilson was hired last year as theexecutive director of a new statewidearts advocacy organization calledMASSCreative. Meetings galvanizedcultural organizations statewide, andso far about 75 are participating.

Wilson appears to be just the
man for the challenge. He is a former
field staff director for MoveOn.org
and he founded the Toxics Action
Center, which helped 300 grassroots
organizations address toxic pollution.

MASSCreative wants people torealize that the arts are not just nice,but necessary — and that access to thearts is a matter of social justice. Oneof the group’s projects is ARTS forAll, an initiative aimed at getting theBoard of Higher Education to require ayear of arts education as an admissionrequirement for public colleges anduniversities.

Under the Education ReformAct of 1993, arts educationbecame a recommendation, butnot a requirement, for high schoolgraduation. Five years ago, theBoard of Elementary and SecondaryEducation’s recommended programof studies known as MassCore beganincluding four years of English andmath, three years of a lab-basedscience and history, two years offoreign language and one year of arts.The Board of Higher Education’sstandards have evolved in step withMassCore’s recommendations, exceptfor the arts.MTA Vice President Tim Sullivan,a church soloist, says the arts deserve astrong push and vocal advocacy.“Music instruction, the visual andperforming arts and dance do morethan build skills,” he adds. “They helpchildren develop their natural gifts.”For more information, please visitwww.mass-creative.org.